Meyer Murder Migraine

Chris Coleman is an innocent man, at least until a jury decides otherwise. But it’s not looking good for him. The 32-year old has been arrested in the triple-slaying of his wife and two sons. Prosecutors say the evidence against Coleman is overwhelming.

Popular TV Evangelist Joyce Meyer is likely combating a mega-migraine as a result.

Coleman worked on Meyer’s security staff. Meyer is probably longing for the day when her worst nightmare was an investigation by Senator Grassley into financial misconduct. The Better Business Bureau maintains that Meyer’s ministry violates the standard for Charitable Accountability.

Not that Meyer is in any way responsible for the deaths of 31-year-old Sheri Coleman or her sons Garrett, 11, and Gavin, 9.

Well not in any major way, except, it appears that her policy prohibiting any staff members from being divorced may have given Coleman the impetus he was looking for, if he did indeed strangle his wife and two boys as charged. Police Chief Joe Edwards said Joyce Meyers confirmed no employee can be divorced.

Coleman did, in fact, resign the week before his arrest after an internal investigation by the ministry found that he failed to follow ministry policy. News reports didn’t identify the nature of the policy he failed to follow but a good guess might be that it had something to do with infidelity.

Seems Coleman had been carrying on with one of Sheri Coleman’s closest gal pals, Tara Lintz, of St. Petersburg, Fla.

Chris Coleman is an innocent man — even he says so. But the evidence against him, well, that’s another matter.

There’s this matter of the affair.

And the threatening notes, at least one of which was sent from his work laptop at Joyce Meyer Ministries. Notes designed to make it look like somebody was upset at Sheri Coleman for all the work she did on behalf of Meyer Ministries:

“(Expletive)! Deny your God publicly or else! No more opportunities. Time is running out for you and your family.”

That threat, dated Jan. 1, referred to someone traveling to Asia, but doesn’t refer to anyone by name. Sheri Coleman participated in missionary trips to southeast Asia, including Cambodia. “Have a good time in India (expletive)!”

The second letter, again to Sheri Coleman, was dated April 27, 2009:
“I am giving you the last warning! You have not listened to me and you have not changed your ways. I have warned you to stop traveling and stop carrying on with this fake religious life of stealing people’s money. ”

The note also referred to some unnamed woman. Possibly Meyer?

“You think you are so special to do what you do protecting or think you are protecting her. She is a b*tch and not worth doing it. Stop today or else. I know your schedule. … This is my last warning. Your worst nightmare is about to happen!”

Coleman had reportedly told his girlfriend that he was going to serve Sheri with divorce papers on the same day her body and that of her sons were found dead in their beds. Obscene messages were spray-painted in red throughout the house.

Good thing Meyer doesn’t implement such a policy about divorce when it comes to accepting donations to her ministry, heh? Given this country’s divorce rate, Meyer would stand to lose an estimated half of her annual $100 million income.

11 Responses

The whole “no divorce policy” is irrelevant. In the first place, Coleman never filed for divorce, no matter what he told Tara Lintz.

He was fired because of adultery, not for considering a divorce. The grounds for divorce would necessarily bring the adultery to light. JM couldn’t allow an admitted adulterer as an employee–EVEN IF HE WORKED IT OUT WITH SHERI and didn’t get a divorce. Wouldn’t matter if he were filed against or filed himself. The only “good divorce” would be if Sheri suddenly went nuts and gave him domestic-abuse reasons, save-my-kids reasons to divorce.

Fired for adultery–he’s free to divorce or not divorce after that. That the “no divorce policy” would factor into a decision to murder his family is just ridiculous, and if Chief Edwards cites it as a reason, he’s not thinking it through. Covering up adultery works a little better.

I don’t think CC ever planned to keep his job with JMM in the unlikely event his story was believed. He’d need to leave the area “to heal” and his wife’s best friend would be at his side. So I don’t think keeping his job was the idea. In fact, I believe his “side business” of home-surveillance systems was his attempt to break free of JMM employment.

True. He never did file for divorce and I agree, I think the investigation may ultimately reveal that there was insurance money attached to the death of his wife.

Still, there’s no question that this affair had been going on for quite awhile — threats started coming into the Coleman residence Jan 1 — and that the ministry has something to hide. They have filed a confidentiality petition in the wrongful death civil suit filed by Sheri Coleman’s family. The ministry’s attorney has said that if documents were released they may cause “irreparable harm” to the ministry. Why?

Moreover, I’d have a lot less trouble with the “no divorce” rule if it applied to donors as well. Isn’t it somewhat inconsistent to say to divorced people: “You aren’t good enough to work for us, but your money is?”

Additionally, Coleman did not leave the ministry until a week before he was arrested for the triple slaying, after being called on the carpet by the ministry folks, undoubtedly for the affair.

I may be wrong but my thinking is that the reason the ministry’s attorneys are fighting to keep things confidential is that they knew about the affair long before the murders and did not take action against their employee until after the murders.

Maybe Sheri Coleman didn’t know her good gal pal was carrying on with her husband. Perhaps if she had known this, she would have changed the locks on the doors and filed for divorce, herself.

If travel records show that JM appeared to condone adultery, her ministry is pretty much finito.

She may be looking for a way to spin it as, “I thought she was Sheri’s friend, Chris told me she was Sheri’s friend, I thought she was here to visit Sheri, I never knew anything but that she was Sheri’s friend, Chris told me he brought her because Sheri wanted it.”

That’s her best defense, I think. “Chris told me that Sheri thought Tara should come along to witness my work with women like Tara, see if we could bring her to Jesus. I had no idea, not at all, no, never, not one single tiny idea that this was about adultery. Uh-uh. Nope. I trust my employees in Christ, what, do you think I police them? I was as shocked as anyone that this was going on, and the minute I knew, I sacked him!”

I think JM can play that card quite well. Of course, this is two strikes against her, because she employed a convicted child molester to work in her youth program.

She can explain away a few trips with the “my heart was bigger than my brain” explanation, but if there’s a pattern, we’re going to watch the whole operation do a slo-mo collapse.

Spending a lot of time as I do in all-volunteer ministry with impoverished folks who have various mental illnesses and substance problems, I find that they make more sense to me than so-called sane people most days of the week. Every now and then someone speculates about what Jesus might have been able to do if he’d showed up in the media age of global reach. But the kingdom of God is not and never was about empires, whether that of Imperial Rome, Christian Rome, Constantinople, or modern denominational and media/financial empires. The kingdom of God is lived interpersonally, communitarially with immediate accountability; neither privately nor imperially. As poet John Donne (1572-1631) wrote, “any mans (sic) death diminishes me.” Every person unfaithful to spouse or children diminishes all of humankind. The call to live in the kingdom begins not out there in some far-flung missional colonization of the world but within our own hearts.

I was stunned to read the post about JM….I stumbled upon her several years ago on a long lonely trip back to Georgia after visiting home….The only radio station I could get had JM preaching…… The message moved me and for quite some time afterward I followed her message….even purchased a daily devotional, DVD & cd of ‘Battlefield of Mind’…..I still use today.
I too have a problem with the double standard regarding divorce….can’t work for me but I can take your money…
The whole thing is a mess…It will all come out eventually.

I’ve never understood how organized religion takes God’s words to meet their own needs….it has left with me without a church and disallusioned with those who call themselves christians but act quite differently….

What a terrible tragedy. I don’t see how JM can know all that is going on in her employees lives and am sure she is very distressed about it.

Not employing people who are divorced seems a strange one for her seeing as he is a divorced woman, remarried herself, but I guess like ex-smokers being the worse critics of smokers it goes for some who who are divorced too.

In the mid 90’s I was studying at a Christian College in GA but was refused an on campus secretarial job with the VP because I was divorced and re-married. The remarriage being the ‘sin’ not the divorce. That was their interpretation of Scripture so I had to accept it. It wasn’t the reason given, but my husband wasn’t accepted as a Pastor either and was told why.

After than though I heard that the man they had prayed for to replace the President turned out to have lied about his credentials and his Doctorate was false….they hired a liar….my son dropped out after a few weeks of College and having told them he was struggling to pay the fees he’d incurred, a secular debt-collecting agency was hired to collect….he owed £2,000 but ended up paying $5,000 to the agency…..he was British so didn’t have a grant or student loan…other overseas students (Russian, oriental and asian) were paraded before the staff and students when ‘the Lord miraculously provided the funds’ for their tuition…

My point here is that there are so many double standards within some ‘Christian’ organizations that it is just a matter of time before the cracks show…..they are deceived and misguided themselves so be wise and steer clear where possible knowing that the Light shines in the darkness and nothing is hidden from the Lord.

JM puts out some inspiring and helpful stuff. As a self-help teacher she’s good I think, but as a Christian teacher/preacher then I think she preaches ‘another gospel’ ….

First of all, I don’t really see how any of you can say that the no-divorce policy couldn’t have had anything to do with it. While he did leave the company after violating the adultery policy, that would’ve never come to light had he not been questioned by police regarding the triple homicide of his family. Why the man didn’t just find another job is beyond me. I mean, if his relationship with his girlfriend was so important to him, why wouldn’t he find a job in Florida?

Also, if he is innocent, why wouldn’t he contact her family? Furthermore, why did his family come to the house and remove all of Sheri, Gavin and Garrett’s belongings before her family had a chance? I believe there are a lot of unanswered questions, and really hope it all comes out in the trial.

In any case, he will receive his judgment day, here on Earth and when he departs. He deserves to have a fair trial (only because it’s the law) but I’m pretty sure he knows what will happen. There’s no evidence pointing to an outside intruder. And those poor babies…I will always be baffled by someone who can gruesomely murder an innocent child…may God be with you.